


The prisoner from Eugene and Liesl, D-Day, 1944

by newredshoes



Series: Easy With Daemons In [4]
Category: Band of Brothers, His Dark Materials - Pullman
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crossover, D-Day, Gen, WWII, daemon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newredshoes/pseuds/newredshoes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yourself or your nation — which will it be?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The prisoner from Eugene and Liesl, D-Day, 1944

_"She's an eagle," he insists._

_"Not your kind," his mother says, and there can be no forgiving it._

*

The Americans stare as they march past. He recognizes that look. They're giddy with success, intrigued to see the enemy so close. A few of his own men are glancing at him, but he focuses on his hands. Liesl shifts her weight nervously on his shoulder.

They just keep coming down the road, like they fell from the sky last night. When people used to ask if it was wise to fight against a nation as huge as America, he would smile and remind them that most of the country was empty. He knew: he'd seen it by train. The Fatherland had nothing to fear — all its genius was tightly packed from border to border, and pure. It was a stupid line, but his friends liked to hear it.

*

_"Heinrich," his mother says in German as he slips through the back door to the kitchen. The kids from school are still yelling "See ya, Hank!" outside. "Heinrich, was that Sidney Girolamo I saw you with out there?"_

_He shuts the door and looks up at her. Her rabbit daemon sits up on his hind legs, nostrils flaring. Liesl shakes herself and changes into a sparrow, still dusty. "No," he lies. "I don't play with Sid anymore." His pants are filthy with sandlot dirt, his knees one big splotch of mud where Sid made him slide before he tagged him out._

_"Good," she says, polishing the dishes with her rag. "There are more suitable children for you in the neighborhood. That's why we live here."_

*

When his family repatriated and he saw his home country for the first time, the unity of the German population amazed him. All the daemons of people his own age looked so at home in the landscape. These paratroopers are ragtag and disorganized: a crow, a badger, a mottled hound, a magpie, a bobcat, a bantam hen, a jay. It's like a schoolyard. No one imposed any order on the Americans. They just happened, on their own.

None of his pals are talking, especially not to him. They're ashamed of their defeat. They know they're good men: how was it that foreigners who'd been hiding in England all these months got the better of them?

*

_"Henry," Liesl says, pacing across the foot of his bed. "I think this is it."_

_He stands there in his pajamas looking at her, dark feathers, hooked beak and white head, and hugs his elbows. "Yeah," he says, allowing himself a small smile. It feels like home to see her like that._

*

Körtig has never trusted him. Even after he proved himself and killed Americans in combat, Körtig would never forget that if he wanted to, Heinrich could defect and come away clean. He could tell the Americans anything and say he was a spy. It was always nonsense, but Körtig is a stupid man, which makes the possibilities infinite.

"What was all that?" Körtig asks, once the kid from Astoria is gone.

"We grew up close to each other," he says quietly.

Körtig grunts.

*

_His father does not raise his voice. "No, Heinrich. We cannot allow it."_

_"I don't understand," he stammers. "What do you want us to do? She's settled."_

_"This is a very great decision, and you are still young," Papa says calmly. His Weimaraner daemon sits poised and level-eyed at his knee. "You must consider what you will do next, son. We have a responsibility to uphold the virtue of our race. You cannot only think of yourself. That is not what makes our people great."_

_Liesl digs her talons into his shoulder, hunched forward and curling in. Their hearts are racing._

*

The soldier guarding them is watching him now: he was eavesdropping the whole time he was talking with the Astoria boy. Liesl flutters to the ground, and studies the guard's long-legged cat without speaking.

*

_"We could not be more proud of you," his mother says yet again as she fusses over his uniform. "And thank heaven you aren't going to the Eastern Front. You should fight against men, at least, and not monsters."_

_"What friends you will make!" exclaims his father. "You will be with the best men of your generation. What a future is in store!"_

_"I think they're right," Liesl says later, when they're by themselves. She says it in English._

*

The men from his unit are looking at him as if all their suspicions have finally come to pass. He ignores them, and waits for more Americans, to see if any of them have a starling like him. The muddy lane is empty, save for one figure stalking toward them, the daemon at his side as lean and as certain as any Roman wolf.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a strange story to write in that I approached it more as an exercise rather than something I believed really happened. I wanted to write about external pressure and how that affects choosing a daemon — my question was "What happens to you when you're forced to discover whether you're the kind of person who would change your soul for something else?" — but I'm really not sure that in my personal canon, the prisoner from Eugene who talks with Malarkey was bowing to familial expectations when he emigrated to Germany and joined the army there.


End file.
